The cynical yet always insightful and often hilarious political/financial commentaries that once characterized the Insightful Pontificator can now be found at Mighty Quinn on Politics and Money. The Pontificator remains the reflective, often humorous, and always thought provoking repository of my musings on a multitude of other topics. Faith will be a major topic; believe (it) or not, faith provides plenty of grist for the piquant commentary Pontificator readers have come to expect.

Monday, December 3, 2007

THE SCARIEST TAG TEAM SINCE THE ROAD WARRIORS (AKA “THE LEGION OF DOOM”)

12/3/07

There are, as always, plenty of politicians willing and able to solve our problems, real and imagined, with generous dollops of other people’s money. The current problems wrought by the financial wunderkinds on Wall Street, their salespeople who insist on being called “mortgage consultants,” and a financially obtuse public has thus provided a fecund field for political posturing. In my last post, I commented on Hank Paulson’s (he of the free market Bush administration) plan to extend teaser rate periods in an effort to head off defaults on home loans. Now Hillary Clinton has come along proposing to go Mr. Paulson one better: not only should we force lenders (whoever they might be…see my 12/1/07 post) to extend teaser periods, we should also mandate a 90 day moratorium on home foreclosures!

In my 10/14/07 post, I explained how the world, or at least how the political world, works:

“This is in the normal course of our government’s workings: The Democrats come up with some asinine plan to remedy some problem, real or imagined, with your money. The Republicans respond with a slightly less asinine plan to attack the problem, also with your money, making sure that the primary beneficiaries of the program are among the GOP’s favored constituencies. That is how the world works.”

These latest dance of Secretary Paulson and Senator Clinton is a slight variation on the above described process. In this latest case, the Republicans have come up with a completely asinine idea only to be trumped by the Democrats with an idea that is somehow even more asinine. Both “plans” are designed to make the financially frugal pay for the sins of the profligate. Your government at work.

Lest anyone think that the differences between the parties are more stark than this cynical commentator would indicate, note Senator Clinton’s comments regarding Secretary Paulson:

“I’m very pleased the administration is responding to this crisis.”

Your very likely next president then indicated that she has “high regard” for Mr. Paulson. So much for this election’s being the “most momentous in our lifetimes,” or some such drivel.

About Me

Democrat? Republican? As a guy with no patience for liars, fools, or hypocrites, Mighty Quinn has a healthy disdain for pols of both parties.
A professional investor and lifelong observer of politics, Mark Quinn examines global politics primarily, but not exclusively, from a financial perspective. Mr. Quinn also writes extensively on the politics of Chicago, where he grew up surrounded by pros at the art and science of fleecing the taxpayers and enriching their pals. National pols can only gawk as they aspire to such heights of political chicanery.
In addition to Mighty Quinn on Politics and Money, Quinn also writes The Insightful Pontificator. Formerly the repository his political and financial posts, the Pontificator now features Mr. Quinn’s ruminations on faith and religion. Some have suggested it is written to atone for the often ferocious rants one finds on the Mighty Quinn site.
Mr. Quinn was a featured writer on the Rant Political and Rant Finance sites. He has also written two novels on Chicago politics, The Chairman and The Chairman’s Challenge. Both do for Chicago politics what The Godfather did for the New York Mob.